FELTON, Rebecca Latimer, (1835 - 1930)

Senate Years of Service: 1922-1922
Party: Democrat

FELTON, Rebecca Latimer, (wife of William Harrell Felton), a Senator from Georgia; born near Decatur, De Kalb County, Ga., June 10, 1835; attended the common schools and graduated from the Madison Female College in 1852; moved to Bartow County, Ga., in 1854; taught school; writer, lecturer, and reformer with special interest in agricultural and women’s issues; served as secretary to her husband while he was a Member of Congress 1875-1881; appointed by the Governor as a Democrat to the United States Senate on October 3, 1922, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Thomas E. Watson; served just twenty-four hours, from November 21 to 22, 1922, a successor having been elected; was not a candidate for election to fill the vacancy; the first woman to occupy a seat in the United States Senate; the Senator who, having served one day, served the shortest term; and the oldest Senator, at age eighty-seven, at the time of first swearing-in; engaged as a writer and lecturer and resided in Cartersville, Ga., until her death in Atlanta, Ga., January 24, 1930; interment in Oak Hill Cemetery, Cartersville, Ga.


Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Felton, Rebecca L. My Memories of Georgia Politics. Atlanta: Index Printing Co., 1911; Talmadge, John E. Rebecca Latimer Felton: Nine Stormy Decades. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1960.